Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee says he wasn’t trying to lump President Obama together with Islamic terrorists by saying the president wants Americans to “memorize a Koran verse.”
“Heavens, no,” the GOP presidential contender said on CNN’s “State of the Union” when asked by the moderator whether that was his intention.
Huckabee said he rather intended to make his point that Obama isn’t showing enough anger toward the Islamic State after its recent attacks in Paris and Mali.
“I’m simply pointing out the irony,” Huckabee said. “This president has shown more intensity of anger toward Republicans than toward ISIS … I just wanted to show the same kind of anger directed toward the ISIS terorrists.”
Huckabee mocked Obama’s anti-terrorism policy in a Fox News op-ed on Nov. 23, writing that the president seems more interested in protecting Islam’s reputation than Americans. “After this attack in West Africa, Obama’s new domestic terrorism plan probably requires Americans to memorize Koran verses,” Huckabee wrote
And the day of the Islamic State’s attack in a Mali hotel, which left 20 people dead, Huckabee tweeted: “the Obama-approved domestic anti-terror plan: Give up your guns & memorize a Koran verse.”
Huckabee also repeated his calls for countries, including Middle Eastern countries, to join the U.S. in attacking the Islamic State. He called it a “world battle” over whether the world will be “civilized.”
“We’re fighting not so much for land, real estate and the color of our flag,” Huckabee said. “We’re fighting for a civilized world or whether we’re going to be savages.”
